Guild Wars 2

Hi! *waves *

I’m not very good at this forum thingy, I am usually the one lurking in the shadows and nodding approvingly to other peoples posts. But after playing several MMOs over the years, including the original Guild Wars, I’ve noticed that there are some minor things I miss in GW2. And since I happen to love this game so, so much I figured that I for the first time ever should make a post about it and cross my fingers someone from A-net sees it.

I am a roleplaying-kind of-girl who like to immerse myself in the stories, the world, my characters. I enjoy every aspect of the game, and am very happy with how it turned out to be. However, the things I miss is from a roleplayers perspective, and probably won’t matter much to players who focus on other things for fun.

I’ll make a short list, just to keep my head organized.

1. Interaction with items. Now, I know there is alot of oportunities out there with items as weapons and stuff, which is super fun, but simple things like interacting with a chair in order to sit next to a table is something I miss.

2. The ability to wield torches and lanterns as a vanity item and not as a weapon when I am exploring a deep, dark cave or am walking along a road at night. These items could easily be added to the gem store, like the other toys!

3. A campfire kit, or something similar. I would really, really love to be able to light a campfire for immersion, whenever I want. (with a cooldown, I expect!) After diving in the cold, cold waters in Frostgorge Sound it would be lovely if I could cuddle up next to a warming fire before I continue on with my travels and adventure.

4. Other fun vanity items! Now, I won’t come up with hundreds of suggestions here since I do not know what would be realistic to expect, but based on the points above you get the idea. More outfits would also be appreciated! One can never have too many outfits…

5. First-person view. I know, I know, this might not be what most would call relevant for gameplay, but I would really enjoy to atleast have the oportunity when taking screenshots atleast. I love my characters, but they dont have to be in ALL the pictures!

I’ve seen other great suggestions in this forum, so I’m not gonna repeat them. But I’ll give a cheer for the housing idea, with gem bought items for costumization! Naturally, I realise that this is only a good idea for someone who can actually afford gems, so being able to aquire it in-game too should be possible.

Oki, this is it for now! Modest wishes, but I hope they’ll be fulfilled one day. Untill then, I will continue to play this lovely game and enjoy my time!

xoxo,
Celia

I know it isn’t usable for every situation but you can take a screenshot without the character by using emotes (I use sleep) before hiding the UI. It limits the angles you can take such picture and sometimes you have to go naked (since you would see parts of the armor) but the chracater is off screen. The attachment shows an example of such picture.

Hi Celia! Great to find another Role Player in the mmoRPG area…

A lot of what you mention I remember from my days playing World of Warcraft. It was nice being able to play a character and not focus on gaining levels. The little vanity items you mention would be great, because when you’re roaming different parts of Tyria it’s nice to fully immerse yourself in your character and little items like that make it so much better.

Good to hear you’re enjoying the game so much! I only just started playing a week ago, and it’s incredibly sad to see so many people not enjoying it. Keep up the good posts!

I don’t know how long you have been playing, but your #2 request is available with this item: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flames_of_Kryta

Oddly we had access to first-person perspective in GW1 by zooming the camera all the way in. Not sure why GW2 doesn’t do that.

Ben K.6238:

Oddly we had access to first-person perspective in GW1 by zooming the camera all the way in. Not sure why GW2 doesn’t do that.

ArenaNet responded on that a really long time ago, like, during the beta, and reason was ‘’immersion.’’

I think the real reason is, they never finished the camera system. The current implementation of the camera, is a buggy mess, that is bad even by most PS1 game standards. It constantly zooms in and out when it shouldn’t. When ever the camera is near the ground, and the player climbs a flight of stairs, it goes nuts. When anything gets in between the camera and the player, it zooms in so much you can’t see a thing. And when the player gets close to a wall, it does the same (which makes platforming an infuriating challenge). The camera is also blocked by invisible walls, which means the camera will sometimes zoom in when colliding with the air.

I personally don’t roleplay but i love those ideas. they sound like they’d add colour to this game.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I don’t know how long you have been playing, but your #2 request is available with this item: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flames_of_Kryta

Almost… It still takes the place of our weapons.

Morbridae.8607:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I don’t know how long you have been playing, but your #2 request is available with this item: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flames_of_Kryta

Almost… It still takes the place of our weapons.

Well, she/he did say to wield ‘not as a weapon’, and wanted it to be a Toy. Maybe I misunderstood. /shrug

Would it be like a backpack, then?

The Flames of Kryta torch is no longer available, is it? And it was Account Bound, limited to one per account, right? (I’ve searched for a good light source for my Elementalist before – the one Profession you would think would be the MOST likely to have such a thing available to them, but no!)

Chairs! More emotes! More dances! (Not the little 2-second move repeated ad nauseum from the “Learn to Dance” thing). Campfires! Fishing! SWIMSUITS should be available as Tonics (the only clothing that should ever be a tonic! Yes, I am still extremely upset about the Town Clothes fiasco and will have that sore spot forever). Above all, even if they’re presented to us as “Outfits”, bring back a big selection of non-combat clothing!

I’ll throw my hat in for this. I don’t roleplay in GW2, but you guys have all my support for bringing the world to an even richer life. Running across an RP group is always entertaining, and I think some of these ideas could be really neat!

Thank you so much for the replies! I never thought my little post would spark interest amongst….anyone.

@Atlas Tsahalla: So happy to see a fellow roleplayer! I too played WoW back in the days, and while I find GW2 more enjoyable and immersive, I miss those little vanity items we had. Maybe we’ll see something similar one day!

@Inculpatus cedo: I’ve been playing for two years now, but sadly I didn’t aquire that item during Queens Jubile, and now it’s too late for me! And I would like something that I could use across all my characters, since I have quite a few… But I am crossing my fingers for more items like it. Maybe some lantern variant aswell! And yes, I was thinking along the lines of a toy, since you already got a torch weapon thingamy for the classes that can wield them, and I would like both my hands free when I have to fight.

@Tim: Thank you for the tip on taking screenshots!

The campfire idea is really great and I would absolutely LOVE to have something like that available! I’m not much of a roleplayer, but the ability of doing such a thing while hanging out with my guild would be reason enough to (buy) an item like that.

The big problem with “pleas” from Roleplayers is that they represent such a very, very, very small percentage of the player base that designing features specifically for them (like the vanity items suggested) are not considered worth the time and resources invested.

For example, I maintain that the primary reason town clothes as a concept was dropped was because the vast majority of the playerbase had less than zero interest in them (because they couldn’t be worn in combat).

The campire and vanity torches/lanterns would be a sunk cost for Arena.net with very little chance of hitting the margins their publisher demands. Why spend hours altering the game engine to allow sitting in chairs when roughly 1% of the players (that is a rough estimate based on what I’ve heard about RPers in MMOs, so feel free to put in any small number you want) would really ever use it?

I know. That sucks. I’m not an avid RPer, but I have no problem with it or engaging in it with others who do so. But it’s a sad reality of the MMO business (and gaming at the “AAA” level as a whole), is that money talks. If you aren’t making money (and often it’s not even a matter of making money, but making ENOUGH money for the publisher’s tastes), what good are you? Decisions have to made with, “How can we get at least a significant minority of our players interested in this?” in mind.

With RP suggestions, the answer is nigh always, “We can’t, and there’s no hope of doing so. It’s not even worth trying.”

@Chemiclord: Eh, you never know. Wishful thinking/plea’ing certainly didn’t keep us off Mars. Other games have these items, no reason we couldn’t see them in GW 2 one day. But, I understand you’re realism – hard to accept it though.

I miss RP/PVP server splits. It didn’t mean much to have dedicated RP servers, but at least joining one meant you were more likely to find other RP’ers.

Sorry to say, but it’s pretty obvious ANet does not consider the RP community large enough to focus specific content for (and I’m not saying they are right or wrong in that choice). If Anet wanted to support RP, they would make some RP specific city servers to support them (not saying they never will do this either).

The idea that actual development resources would be used to provide content that ONLY RPers would find useful is kind of cute…..and goes right along with the general idea of Role Playing. Self-delusional fantasy (and I’m not trying to be mean and imply RPing does not have it’s place in this game).

LOTRO had some truly great RP ideas that should not be hard for GW2 to implement. LOTRO came out in 2007 I believe. One thing I enjoyed were instruments. Every character could play some instruments like flute or lyre. You could import midi files into game, including your own pieces and play them in game. I remember folks playing the “Cheers” theme outside of the Prancing Pony while we all stood around laughing and dancing. Nonetheless, this is a great way for a musician to share their own music with others in GW2, or for a non musician to share their favorite music as well.

Also I remember fireworks being more plentiful than in GW2. When someone takes out a box ’o fun or some fireworks in GW2, it stimulates RP in that area, so make those items easier to obtain.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think the real reason is, they never finished the camera system. The current implementation of the camera, is a buggy mess, that is bad even by most PS1 game standards. It constantly zooms in and out when it shouldn’t. When ever the camera is near the ground, and the player climbs a flight of stairs, it goes nuts. When anything gets in between the camera and the player, it zooms in so much you can’t see a thing. And when the player gets close to a wall, it does the same (which makes platforming an infuriating challenge). The camera is also blocked by invisible walls, which means the camera will sometimes zoom in when colliding with the air.

No. please read http://www.guildmag.com/community-interview-with-colin-johanson/

It explains why no 1st person view. If you think they didn’t finish with the camera system, we couldn’t play at all.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Would it be like a backpack, then?

We have that, or at least some of us have it. It’s called “Mad Memories: Complete Edition”.

Dusty Moon.4382:

No. please read http://www.guildmag.com/community-interview-with-colin-johanson/

It explains why no 1st person view. If you think they didn’t finish with the camera system, we couldn’t play at all.

I’ve read that explanation, and it’s nonsense. That’s what you tell players. But I can tell you that the camera system isn’t finished. I can recognize an unfinished, unpolished, camera system when I see one. Much like a lot of elements in the game, it was rushed out the door. That’s a nice advertisement talk Colin puts out, but really the current camera system is inferior to that of even the original Tombraider 1.

Yeah, I’m not even kidding here. Notice how Tombraider’s camera doesn’t zoom in and out all the time, not even when it gets close to the floor? You can keep the camera close to the floor, and run up a flight of stairs, without the camera going absolutely bonkers. It also doesn’t zoom in if Lara runs head-first into a wall. It only zooms in if the camera gets wedged in between Lara and an obstacle, and then it switches to zoomed in and an overhead view. Tombraider’s camera is A LOT less nauseating than GW2’s camera system. Oh, and it also has a first person mode. GG GW2.

Oh, but it gets worse. You see, much of GW2’s environments were specifically designed with the poor camera system in mind. That is why you rarely have to squeeze through tight spaces in GW2. Try some of the jumps and camera moves that you see in the Tombraider video in GW2, and see how the GW2 camera fails at even the most basic camera moves. It is a complete and utter mess.

But heck, you can even look at GW1’s camera system. If GW2’s camera system is worse than GW1’s camera system, then it’s clearly not finished. They had all the time in the world to get it right, and it’s absolutely awful. They didn’t finish the camera system.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think the real reason is, they never finished the camera system. The current implementation of the camera, is a buggy mess, that is bad even by most PS1 game standards. It constantly zooms in and out when it shouldn’t. When ever the camera is near the ground, and the player climbs a flight of stairs, it goes nuts. When anything gets in between the camera and the player, it zooms in so much you can’t see a thing. And when the player gets close to a wall, it does the same (which makes platforming an infuriating challenge). The camera is also blocked by invisible walls, which means the camera will sometimes zoom in when colliding with the air.

No. please read http://www.guildmag.com/community-interview-with-colin-johanson/

It explains why no 1st person view. If you think they didn’t finish with the camera system, we couldn’t play at all.

In that interview, in the same section of that interview, he says that the reason they did not implement a first person view is because they want you to be able to see your character….

and

he goes on about your character in a world boss fight.

and yet Anet chose to ensure that, fairly often in my experience, you cannot see your character in a big boss fight due to excessive graphical effects.

Thanks for pointing out another inconsistency Dusty. Another example of say one thing, do something else.

I agree with the OP that her suggestions would be nice additions. I also agree with those who have stated a belief that the additions seem unlikely due to ROI.

Wolfheart.7483:

You have nothing to base that on. Unless Anet themselves say they didn’t finish it, nobody can really state otherwise. You can hate the camera all you want, everyone has their own opinion. However, you have no knowledge of whether it was finished/rushed or not.

Yes I do. This is my work. I have worked with plenty of camera systems, and the development of them for games. And I can see that it is unfinished.

But there are plenty of clues for the unfinished camera system in the game itself. Take for example the troll’s end jumping puzzle. Josh has stated himself that they changed the way the camera works just before the game was released, which is why that particular JP is such a pain with the camera. It was made for a different camera that didn’t constantly zoom in, like the current camera does. They changed something just before shipping the game, and now the camera is in a terrible state.

Wolfheart.7483:

You’re speculating based on your distaste for how the camera functions.

Clearly not. I’m saying it is unfinished, because it performs worse than an ancient PS1 game. Given the time they had to get it right, it’s absurd that the camera is this bad.

Wolfheart.7483:

Personally, I find the camera to be fine. Sure it can be a pain sometimes…

Contradicting yourself a bit here.

Wolfheart.7483:

but that could be said about the camera in virtually every 3D game ever made.

And that’s not true. There are plenty of games that have camera systems that work perfectly. God of War for example, uses a camera that switches between a rail system, and a free flowing camera, yet never messes up.

Guild Wars 1 had a pretty simple camera system, but it never caused nausea. It worked just fine.

Dark Souls has a pretty good camera system too. In fact, most of the 3D games released recently all tend to have pretty decent camera systems.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Dark Souls has a pretty good camera system too. In fact, most of the 3D games released recently all tend to have pretty decent camera systems.

Even ones not as recent have pretty decent ones, though they can still get screwy around walls for reasons I’m not sure of. I found the “Monster Hunter” series has a pretty good grasp on it for what it needs to do – it’s not perfect but it’s more capable of keeping the action in sight.

Anything that helps the RP community has my support. One of the best things about this game is getting immersed in the world, and simple things like campfires, sitting in chairs, eating, etc. really help provide that immersion and make the world feel more alive.

Example: if you go to an inn, pub, tavern or whatever, there should be eating, drinking, dancing, barmaids serving patrons, guests sleeping on the beds. You know, stuff you’d expect to see in a place like that. The lodges in Hoelbrak should be a lot more rowdy and lively, but instead everyone’s just kind of standing around like statues.

Obviously, the focus should still be on balancing, battle mechanics, etc., but fun little side features would really add to the game. A good place to start would be to add a ton more emotes. I miss the ones you could do in GW1.

The problem with the camera/viewpoint/etc. in a 3D game that you can control is that you can control it. Its difficult to make a perfect camera system without just giving the player unlimited access, allowing you to see scenery from angles that makes it look like a buggy mess or showing massive clipping issues.

Personally I think that 3D games with a fixed camera that you have no control over are actually darn near perfect (god of war for example), though they are horrible for a game like Guild Wars. It keeps all the action front and centered, and there is no chance for it to betray you at the worst possible times, or at any time in general. ((Like this game for example, which some people have already pointed out has a big problem with invisible walls. Even small rocks and environmental scenery can prevent you from moving the camera properly, causing it to suddenly zoom in and out when there is no reason to. Its not a bad camera, but its not anything amazing either. And….most MMO’s have this problem.))

Chrispy.5641:

Personally I think that 3D games with a fixed camera that you have no control over are actually darn near perfect (god of war for example), though they are horrible for a game like Guild Wars.

God of War doesn’t only have a fixed camera though. They switch between a rail camera (for specific sections) and a free camera (for battles).

Chrispy.5641:

It keeps all the action front and centered, and there is no chance for it to betray you at the worst possible times, or at any time in general. ((Like this game for example, which some people have already pointed out has a big problem with invisible walls. Even small rocks and environmental scenery can prevent you from moving the camera properly, causing it to suddenly zoom in and out when there is no reason to. Its not a bad camera, but its not anything amazing either. And….most MMO’s have this problem.))

I don’t think that’s true. Most MMO’s I’ve seen have little to no camera problems at all. And while I wouldn’t call them polished, most camera systems in MMO’s today at least don’t do that awful nauseating zooming that the GW2 camera does.

And the weird thing is, you can easily set the camera to not collide with invisible walls. That is why you have invisible walls in the first place, so they only block players. Why makes a camera collide with invisible walls? It makes no sense.

There’s several bizarre things about the camera in GW2 that no other camera in MMO’s, or any other recent title seems to do.

• Colliding with invisible walls.
• The FOV is set to very strange values, allowing you to see only 50% of the world.
• Zooming in when ever an object gets between the camera and the player.
• Zooming in whenever the camera bumps into the ground.
• Zooming in whenever the player faces a wall.

Especially that last one is bizarre. Because it means that whenever you are doing a jumping puzzle, and are preparing for your next jump, there will be a point where you approach something you want to jump on, and then the camera zooms all the way in. And it’s not a gradual zoom either. It’s instantly right on top of you so you can see nothing but an extreme close up of your character.

The FOV is also weird. If they would pull back the FOV we would see so much more of the environment, and we wouldn’t feel so nauseated all the time. Currently the FOV is so zoomed in, that it kind of feels like having your face pressed against a tv screen. There’s been a few players who have messed around with the FOV settings, and tried to force GW2 to zoom out and override the default settings, and it’s a world of difference. Suddenly you can see much more, and the image is way more relaxing on the eyes.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Even ones not as recent have pretty decent ones, though they can still get screwy around walls for reasons I’m not sure of.

That’s because the camera literally bumps into walls, and follows the player character at a distance. The further away the camera is, the more easily it crashes into a wall whenever the player makes a hard turn. The camera has to catch back up with the player when that happens, but very few camera systems are intelligent enough to handle this well. You can see for example in the Tombraider video, that the camera kind of snaps to a new angle whenever it encroaches on a wall too much, to provide an unobstructed view of the action. But above all, game cameras try to avoid going through geometry, and showing the hollow inside of game objects.

Now look at what the GW2 camera does in these situations:

I fondly remember setting camps in the wilderness in SWG. (we had wilderness, the entire game wasn’t a grade school playground at recess time).

People would appear out of no where, visit, get my Entertainer buff, and move on.. or stay and chat. A majority of them were not Roleplayers. Some would stumble in with black barred wounds and were as happy to see me as a man lost in the desert would be finding a waterhole.

Games don’t have socialization mechanics like that anymore. It is such a shame.

Re “Explanation” for the camera? Jon Lovitz did the bit better, and far funnier.

“Yeah, Yeah, it was……. immersion! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

The lack of support for basic RP concepts in this game is really frustrating. The complete refusal to even DISCUSS what the megaserver did to RP gives a pretty clear sign that ANet just doesn’t care.

I really miss the campfire kits in SWG. Those were great.

I just hope that pressure from certain other games soon to be released in the US that do provide everything you asked for will encourage them to improve, and prove me wrong. I’d love to be wrong about this.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Effigy_Fragment

I enjoy the ideas Celia. I also hope that they do something to fix chair and couch physics so that one does not simply become one with a sofa, such as Lord Farin in the human home instance.

There are a good number of RPers on GW2, and the sheer number of players on servers such as Tarnished Coast and Piken Square, despite the Megaservers issues in recent months, chose to join those servers for that vary reason. I know it is a financial sink in some ways, but maybe NCsoft would grant more of ArenaNet’s full profits to them so such things may be implemented.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Chrispy.5641:

Personally I think that 3D games with a fixed camera that you have no control over are actually darn near perfect (god of war for example), though they are horrible for a game like Guild Wars.

God of War doesn’t only have a fixed camera though. They switch between a rail camera (for specific sections) and a free camera (for battles).

I kind of meant fixed as in out of your control. There is no point in any god of war game where you can control the zoom or angle, except for moving across the screen, in which case, the camera adjusts accordingly.

There is no free, rotate yourself camera in any battle sequence in any of the games, or Dante’s Inferno either(a similar game). Darksiders is a different story, as you could control the camera in that game.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t think that’s true……snip…..

While not quite as bad as guild wars 2, it was still really bad at times in the Secret World and Lord of the Rings Online, the other 2 MMO’s that I played before.

And the big problem with invisible walls in this game is that it sets the camera limits. The Invisible walls are like a collision model(read : that’s exactly what they are), separated but connected to the regular model (they can also be placed without an existing model to create invisible walls), and its the collision model that determines where a character can walk/stand/etc. and it also determines where the camera limits are.

Skyrim uses that system, because everything in the game except the landscape has to have a defined model, and a defined collision area set to it, otherwise you could run right through it. That’s why things you can move through (whether its a flag or badly placed solid rock) don’t block the camera. There’s no collision model tied to the main model defining its limits, and the collision model doesn’t have to be the same size as the main model either. I am guessing that Guild Wars 2 has a similar system, since the camera zooms in when running behind a tree, but the leaves that you can jump through doesn’t block the camera.

I’m being very simple when I explain it, and I’m sure you knew all this already, but its a problem that’s not likely to get fixed in Guild Wars 2 unless some major reprogramming/modeling is done to…pretty much everything. If Anet defines a tree as not blocking the camera, then it could be as simple as creating a flag so the collision model doesn’t block the camera, or it could be a lot more complex than that.

Popping in to say YES PLEASE TO FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE. I heard from a friend that this was briefly available during Beta or something like that and I am really disappointed that it still does not exist in game.

+10 points to all of OP’s other suggestions.

Yes please to player housing. I am still waiting to be able to craft/discover/find/dungeon/gather materials for my house and then host guild/stranger tea parties.

If and when housing is implemented, I am hoping that interact-able chairs, sofas, beds, etc are added as well since… I feel that makes sense. It’s hard to have a tea party when everyone is half-morphed with the furniture.

Allaraina.8614:

Popping in to say YES PLEASE TO FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE. I heard from a friend that this was briefly available during Beta or something like that and I am really disappointed that it still does not exist in game.

+10 points to all of OP’s other suggestions.

Yes please to player housing. I am still waiting to be able to craft/discover/find/dungeon/gather materials for my house and then host guild/stranger tea parties.

If and when housing is implemented, I am hoping that interact-able chairs, sofas, beds, etc are added as well since… I feel that makes sense. It’s hard to have a tea party when everyone is half-morphed with the furniture.

Im not much into RP, but miss the houses like lineage had they could also bring GVG’s back, and i don’t imagine that being adopted by Anet, due their megaserver overflow pride (hopefully something nice comes out of it), besides the home instance we might not receive anything more than nodes and other random stuff to add to that instance.

If u guys don’t mind what kind of activities the RP’s do in this game?

@Allaraina: Lovely to meet a fellow enthusiastic! I’d love to see the oportunity to have tea together some day.

@Stormdancer: Thank you for the support! I actually approve of the megaserver system, although it has made random RP a little more difficult. But I take the good with the bad and try to work around it.

@Arshavir: Thank you. I am on Piken Square myself, and it’s a wonderful community of roleplayers here. It might be considered a financial sink to add small items like my lantern/ torch or campfire set in order to cater to a small playerbase like us (small being a relative term), but I don’t see why our wishes should be neglected when we spend our money on this lovely game just like everyone else. Looking at all the other toys in the gemstore I remain hopeful that others will see the fun in them!

@Aeolus: Well, I can only speak for myself, since every roleplayer approach the game in different ways. Personally it’s not the activities I do that define me as a roleplayer, so I can’t give you a straight answer here. I like to “get inside of my characters head” and play her/him out with her/his own distinct personality and background story. I realise that we roleplayers are a strange specimen for most players that doesn’t have any experience with that kind of gameplay, but for me the game is much more enjoyable when I immerse myself in everything I do, see it from my characters perspective. Be it exploring, hunting dragons, running dungeons or hanging out with other players around a campfire. (granted, when socializing with other players that are not RPers I turn that mindstate off… otherwise I’d seem rather creepy!)